It is not unusual at this time of year for sport viewing habits to be dominated by goings-on in Europe.

But for fans of either Tasmanian sportsmen or global soccer, this winter looks set to be particularly long and demanding.

For fans of both, it's a perfect storm of Hurricane Tracy proportions.

Around midnight on Sunday night, Richie Porte and Jake Birtwhistle were tackling their personal mountains in the French Alps and Yorkshire Dales respectively.

Porte finally won where he had twice finished second while Birtwhistle finished 22nd where he had won last time out.

Stewart McSweyn is a third Launceston-born Tokyo Olympian-in-waiting currently doing his finest work in our early hours on various live-streams at assorted European outposts.

Porte's 11^th involvement in the Tour de France, where he is hoping to replicate last year's third-place finish, will run from June 26.

Rolland Garros will soon give way to Wimbledon to keep insomniac tennis viewers happy while soccer supporters never seem to be short of entertainment.

No sooner have all the domestic European campaigns finished than the English-dominated showpiece finals took centre stage.

And just a couple of weeks later, come the inaccurately-named Euro 2020 continental championships.

Originally scheduled for June-July last year, the quadrennial tournament was postponed due to some global pandemic thing which must have since been completely dealt with as it will now take place in 11 cities across the same number of countries necessitating considerable international travel for the participants.

However, as this notion was proposed in 2012 by incorruptible UEFA president Michel Platini as a "romantic" one-off event to celebrate the 60th "birthday" of the European Championships, everybody appears happy to go along with it.

Italy hosts Turkey at Rome's Stadio Olympico in Friday's tournament opener before the 24 teams jet off to such far-flung locations as Baku, St Petersburg, Glasgow and Seville, all diligently wearing masks obviously.

With many of the planet's top-ranked teams taking part - and Scotland - it promises to be a feast of footballing entertainment.

World class players like Kylian Mbappé, Antoine Griezmann, Paul Pogba, N'Golo Kanté, Kingsley Coman and Karim Benzema are all set to feature along with plenty more who aren't French.

In Australia, the games are being shown on Optus Sport and the kick-off times are ideal ... if you're a bat.

Starts range from 11pm to 2am and 5am, or obviously all three for the really dedicated with minimal interest in retaining their day job.

Next Thursday night is one for the purists with Ukraine taking on North Macedonia before more traditional match-ups like Denmark versus Belgium and the Netherlands against Austria.

However, there's also some mouth-watering confrontations complete with obligatory historical connections like France versus Germany and England versus Scotland while Finland against Russia also carries a fair bit of war-time baggage.

Furthermore, as the last four World Cup winners - and seven of the last eight finalists - have been European, the continent can justifiably claim to be soccer's planetary hotbed - much to the annoyance of Brazil and Argentina.

The tournament reaches its conclusion at London's Wembley Stadium on July 11, a week before Porte is due back on the Champs-Élysées where he won't have much time for any celebrations due to another pressing commitment in the Olympic road race on the opposite side of the planet another six days later.

Being in Japan, with its one-hour time difference to AEST, the Games are at a slightly more civil time for Aussie viewers who may need to schedule the week beginning July 19 as medically-required sleep recovery.